This is Stefano Bertoncello's Blog (ステファノ・ベルトンチェッロ - トゥーグッドイアーズ − ブロガー、オーディオ＆ミュージック・コンサルタント) devoted to pacific topics like Music - live and reproduced - i.e. discs, audio, guitars - both vintage and new, concerts, workshops, and related stuffs.
Furthermore: travelling - as a mind-game and real globetrotting, and books, movies, photography... sharing all the above et al. and related links... and to anything makes Life better and Earth a better place to stay, enjoying Life, in Peace.

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Tuesday, July 31, 2018

From April 1962 to September 1965, while under contract to the record label Impulse!, John Coltrane led a more or less consistent working group with the same four musicians. After his death in 1967, this group—Coltrane on tenor and soprano saxophone, McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, Elvin Jones on drums—became known as Coltrane’s “classic quartet.” The group was powerful, elegant, and scarily deep. It was also a well-proportioned framing device. It made an artist with great ambitions easier to understand.

It is possible to hear conviction and morality in some of the classic quartet’s best-known music—like the devotional A Love Supreme, recorded in late 1964—as clearly as you can hear melody or rhythm. As a consequence, all of it can appear set on one venerable plane. As it moves inexorably from ballads, blues, and folk songs into abstraction, the classic-quartet corpus can seem an index not only for the range of acoustic jazz but for possibly how to live, gathered and contained, as if it were always there. But the corpus is only what we have been given to hear. And then one day a closet door flies open, a stack of tapes fall out, and a dilemma begins.

A fair amount of Coltrane’s music has been released after the fact, but nothing that would seem, from a distance, quite so canonical as Both Directions At Once, which is 90 minutes worth of (mostly) previously unheard recordings made at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio on March 6, 1963—the middle of the classic-quartet period. The Van Gelder studio, in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, can be considered part of the framing device. It was where the group did nearly all its studio work. For reasons of acoustics, it had a 39-foot-high, cathedral-like, vaulted wooden ceiling, fabricated by the same Oregon lumber company that made blimp hangars during World War II. Coltrane’s music during that period, possibly encouraged by the cathedral-like room, became blimpier and churchier.

Why have we not heard these tapes before? It’s hard to imagine that they could have been blithely ignored or forgotten. The 2018 answer is that mono audition reels of the session were only recently found in the possession of the family of Coltrane’s first wife, Juanita Naima Coltrane. (Impulse! didn’t have the music; the label’s master tapes may have been lost in a company move from New York to Los Angeles.) The 1963 answer is unknown, and probably more complicated.

Coltrane’s contract with Impulse! called for two records a year. Whether that day’s work in March was to be conceived at the time as a whole album, or most of one, is uncertain. The extent to which you believe the record’s subtitle—The Lost Album—might be the extent to which you are excited by the news of Both Directions. I can’t quite do it, but there are other reasons to be excited.

It may be hard to hear as a coherent album for back then, though it is easy to hear it as one for now, in our current, expanded notion of what an album is. The music does not seem, in its context, to be a full step forward. It’s a little caught between shoring up and surging forth. (The after-the-fact title—alluding to a conversation Coltrane had with Wayne Shorter about the possibility of improvising as if starting a sentence in the middle, moving backward and forward simultaneously—helps turn a possible liability into a strength.) It can give you new respect for the rigor, compression, and balance of some of his other albums from the period. It is at times, as Coltrane’s son Ravi pointed out, surprisingly like a live session in a studio; parts of the music sound geared toward a captive audience. That may be the best thing about it.

Included on the album—which comes either as a single-disc version or a double-disc with alternate takes, both including extensive liner notes by historian Ashley Kahn—is a sunny, bright-tempo melody (the theme from “Vilia,” written by the Hungarian composer Franz Lehár for the operetta The Merry Widow); a downtempo, minor-key, semi-standard (“Nature Boy,” from the book of eden ahbez, the California proto-hippie songwriter); one of Coltrane’s best original lines, in four different takes (“Impressions,” which he’d been working out in concert for several years); a couple of pieces for soprano saxophone which are representative but not stunning (“Untitled Original 11383,” minor-key and modal, and “Untitled Original 11386,” with a pentatonic melody); “One Up, One Down,” a short, wily theme as a pretext for eight minutes of hard-and-fast jamming; and “Slow Blues,” about which more in a minute.

Coltrane was already building albums from disparate sessions, a practice that would soon yield 1963’s Impressions and Live at Birdland, two records that set live and studio tracks side by side. He may have been stockpiling without a clear purpose; he also had to consider what would sell. Since his recording of “My Favorite Things” in 1961—a hit by jazz terms—Coltrane had become recognizable. His subsequent working relationship with Bob Thiele, the head of Impulse!, was based on the notion that he could expand that audience, not shrink it. Six months before the Both Directions session, he’d made a record with Duke Ellington; the day after it, he’d make another with the singer Johnny Hartman. He was entering the popular artist’s paradox of striving to repeat a past success and trying not to run aground on retreads.

The sense of strength and inevitability we associate with Coltrane’s music didn’t just tumble out. It was likely a byproduct of diligence, restlessness, exhausted possibilities, obsession and counter-obsession. He thought about progress. He passed through serial phases of exploring harmonic sequences, modes, and multiple rhythms; when he acknowledged one phase in an interview, he was generally looking for the next. At the height of the classic quartet, he often didn’t have the time or psychic space for study and practice. “I’m always walking around trying to keep my ear open for another ‘Favorite Things’ or something,” he told the writer Ralph Gleason in May, 1961. “I can’t get in the woodshed like I used to. I’m commercial, man.” More: “I didn’t have to worry about it, you know, making a good record, because that wasn’t important. Maybe I should just go back in the woodshed and just forget it.” At the time, a record like Both Directions might have seemed an open admission that he could have used less worry and more woodshed.

What he meant by “another ‘Favorite Things’” might have been a similar act of counterintuition: a sweet, sentimental tune made paranormal, a curiosity that could break out beyond the normal jazz audience and anchor a hit record. If “Vilia” was intended for that role, it isn’t strong enough. “Impressions,” on Both Directions, in its first known studio recording—especially take 3—sounds sublimely focused. But I’m not sure Coltrane plays it here any better than he did sixteen months earlier at the Village Vanguard, the live version he’d choose later in 1963 when finally issuing the tune, on the record of that name. (It’s complicated, I know.)

“Slow Blues” is the one. There is no narrative here, as there sometimes was with Coltrane’s originals; it is not expressly about love or hardship or religious joy. But Coltrane turns himself inside-out. First, he phrases in bare, hesitant strokes, using negative space; then he begins to whip phrases around, repeating them up and down the horn in rapid, shinnying patterns, reaching for inexpressible sounds, getting ugly. (McCoy Tyner’s solo, directly following Coltrane’s, is tidy and elegant, thorough in its own radically contrasting way.) There is the idea of the “new,” and then there is something like this track, which transcends the burden of newness.

I imagine three possible problems someone might have had with putting “Slow Blues” on a record in 1963. One is that, at 11 and a half minutes, it would have taken up a third of the record. Two is that a long blues probably wouldn’t be properly commercial unless there was some sort of story attached to it. And three is that, as was the case with “Impressions,” “Slow Blues” doesn’t explicitly show progress. Hear Coltrane on the long, slow “Vierd Blues” from the Sutherland Hotel in Chicago in 1961. It’s not great sound quality, but it is great in every other way. “Slow Blues” grows from the same root. It’s no “better,” really, but it’s better to have more of it, and better recorded. It is possible to take in Both Directions At Once, some of it middling by Coltrane’s standards and some of it extraordinary by anyone’s, without much thought about sellability or progress. In an ideal case, both qualities are overrated anyway. This is an ideal case.

To me and to my ears, this Coltrane's recording - plainly said - don't add anything to his impressive legacy... the low sound quality, grainy and veiled, just makes an offense to Van Gelder's recording art... the "master" has been a 4-tracks tape for home evaluation in Coltrane's possession, a tape which possibly got deteriorated by poor storage and the like... the music is a mild... WOW... the sound... definitely is NOT.

Friday, July 27, 2018

“… it took years. Years of
thinking and rethinking... dealing with the signals of such a low level... if 1
mV is 0dB level, I want -90dB to be perfect... this is something you do not
really think about but yes. even -100dB. Yes, below the own noise level, yes,
much below the surface noise level. just because we do hear it - otherwise
humans will be extinct many eons ago. useful info - we can hear it effectively
with the levels much less than the surrounding noise level... and the range....
where the top frequency just 1000 times more than the low...

The first tube - ECC808 by Telefunken is probably
the best tube from the 12AX7/ECC83 family - with different pinout, so not
interchangeable. has a very low noise floor, so withDC filament I was able to
achieve -80dB noise floor of the whole preamp. Second tube is ECC82, quite
usual, I'm using 5963 military version. and good in some application russian
6N6Pi as an output tube. Power supply has separate power rails for different
stages, with own dedicated DC filters. Rectifiers used are Mullard EZ80

Well... my friend and partner Yanislav Yankov
almost forced me to build first prototype, than the real one that we can offer.
I'm still not sure if I'll be able to make many of such a RIAA pre amps, too
much work, too much attention, too much precise tuning, too much of energy and
life I have to put into each one I make... “

Misho so wrote about my far too
short pre-review of his RIAA phono-stage and power supply.

On my part, I humbly try to describe
the first-ear impressions as I experienced while listening to my system…

A Blogger like yours truly is
only after sharing his passion – no Adsense or other ads to disturb the reader…
and the Blogger himself…and no money, whatsover… I’m usually talking about
something I own, bought or experienced, first-hand… or seldom get on loan from
friends or… the friend-maker, like recently happened with Misho’s stuffs.

Trying to say I’m and remain
out-of-mainstream audio industry like an elf at the borders of Dark Forest… I
don’t care making any money with my sharing, I swear… yet, if I’m able, with my
primitive writing to make people curious about this or that, well… I’m more
than happy, as I also got enthusiasm and gladly like to share is.

Misho has been a long-time pal at
a distance and we shared some common friends, experiences and background music-wise… meeting
him in person has been a 2018 highlight… the guy knows his business and is
skilled and passionate and most
important, loves giving to his customers THE
VERY BEST he can do!

Not bad, uh?!?!

... as you probably read in
previous short reviews about his C3M Line-stage and EL12N SE power amp, I loved
his sonic vision: clean, detailed, zest and lively as it can be… actually, among THE very best I ever had in my
studio, period.

The above statement would be
enough and gladly close any speculation and description, but… NO!

Let me try… The Source.

I I strongly believe in chaos
theory… nothing happens by chance… Quabbala teaches about numbers and their
secret world of chance and beauty… like Universe has its rules, also the humblest
life-facts and -interactions are unfathomable and mysterious as they can be.

So what?

The Source.

Yes… yesterday afternoon, I felt
it was the moment to take from the shelf where it was for the last two weeks,
the freshly-made, brand-new RIAA phono-stage by Misho Myronov.

I took away the EL12N amp by
Misho and got back to my Partridge/300B monoblocks, always on smaller system
with Tandberg 114-116-8 and disconnected the XLO Phono Reference cable coming
from The Head TdP’s MC step-up, previously connected to the J-Fet Kaneda
circuit Le Solstice preamp.

Placed the dedicated PSU and the
light-as-a-feather RIAA, linked by an umbilical mini-XLR cable and connected
via a silver cable to the C3M Line-stage.

The Source…

I went to my Ikea records bins
and randomly searched for THE right disc to place on the Garrardzilla’s
platter, already spinning, in its own alpine, cold quiet timeless beauty.

I love this disc and music and
quite often I listen to one of the great, late Malian artist’s music with
utmost pleasure.

The Source is the source: of
Blues, of rhythm, of joyful music played with friends: the recordings took
place in London shortly after the crew – Ali and his musicians cohort - from
Mali landed at London Heathrow airport, when they headed to the studio, full of
awe and expectation from the all-new adventure.

It was the first of many
records-to-come, and not his first record made in Europe, but this very one truly
owns something special…

I was so lucky to attend to one
of the first (the first, ever?) concert of Ali Farka Tourè at London’s
Roundhouse, end of ‘80s (1987?) and it’s still well carved in my memory as one
of the best concerts I attended in my whole life, where the joy of musicians
was pouring like a spring from the stage to the audience… there I bought my
first Ali’s disc, still cherished in my discotheque…

The Source, when the Lumiere DST
cart on The Peak arm touched the grooves sounded to my old trusty ears like I
got, after years, decades of search I finally arrived, exhausted by expense and
infinite changes and system/gears iterations to the purest of springs, to the
source of musical enjoyment where everything is clear and sounds like it should.

No tap-water,
folks… I’m talking about a mountain spring where the real, natural water comes from the
deep of Earth at 9 degrees Celsius to please the thirst… the pleasure when sipping to this is
bar-none much better than when tasting a Petrus’ or Romanè-Conti’s or a 25 years-old
Laphroaig single-malt.

If you know the
feeling I’m trying to describe you DO know the sensation…

Guitar, acoustic
and electric, small percussions, Ali’s voice and back-ground vocals… every
single note is carved in space with it’s own life, yet functional to music and tune…
it’s something I knew, in my mind, it was possible to achieve, same effect when
I’m playing one of my acoustic guitars with a friend, duo… inter-woving notes,
beatififully decaying and blending with other notes and guitar tones.

I knew that one
day, unexpected, out-of-the-blue, I would be going to feel such a perfection…
the decay, the coda of any tune on Ali’s The Source was an event I was waiting
for… every tiniest movement of the musicians in the studio, standing still ‘til
the tiniest signal was captured by the mikes, yet perceiving the tension after
the emotionally-fueled performance just captured on tape… amazing sense of
being part of the whole-thing: music, life, whatever… I listened to the four
sides of double-discs set in trance-like, with senses tight and emotionally
quiet and feverish at same time, if you get me.

Misho’s two-chassis
RIAA phono-stage simply succeeded in
achieving the top of goals for me as a music lover: being part of the musical event, also if recorded on a media and
not actually happening in front of me with flesh&bones musicians!

Like a musican
spends decades to perfection his craft and skills while making it looks easy
while performing, same happens with Misho’s gears… you’re not bothered and
distracted by technical redundancies, bulky appearance and hideous price-tags…
the EUR 3,500.00 asking-price for the RIAA, for example isn’t frightening, at
all… and after listening to the first notes, ready forgotten, becoming a HUGE
plus.

This too-seldom
experienced - I dare, never, ever experienced before - yet so here and
recognizable as “musical pleasure” was the prize I got after a lifetime of
search, pals.

I got it from
the source – i.e. the system I assembled in years of trials & errors,
faulty and successful attempts – arriving in a loop, a true circle of life, to
thesource, the spring of musical
pleasure, naked and pure, via The Source by Ali Farka Tourè: no way to think
about better cablestubesracksroomchairearsgears… detailsimagingresolutiondynamicsslam…
the mind emptied, silent and still as mountain-lake waters at dusk… sssshhhhh…

Friday, July 20, 2018

This afternoon I felt the time was come to bring the Wooden (power) Amp from the shelf where it was for the last few days...

Disconnected the RCAs and speakers cables from the Partridge/300B mono blocks and connected Misho's line stage to his stereo power amp, straight to the 1965 Tandberg 114-116-8 coaxials.

ON!

The immediate sensation was like "Hey! THIS AMP IS SOOO QUIET... DEADLY SILENT!"

... then sound came...

The amp is gorgeously built, every detail, wooden feet (x3) are lathed from birch plywood, every screw and hex nut is chosen and best quality parts and workmanship pour from this piece of handcrafted gear.

Sure the sought-after Siemens C3M tubes used in line stage are guilty of this feature I so much admire on a tube-based gear - i.e. introspection, unveiled, hyper-detailing and natural, free-wheeling, breathing sound... the matching with the 3,5 power amp is just perfect...

I know and am well aware I'm quite naive and primitive in my description, but - please - forgive me for a moment about lessical shortcomings as I truly wish to write what I wrote...

Yes, perfect... p e r f e c t... P E R F E C T!

Please note not saying Misho's is the best in world, the most expensive (sure it's not, so kindly priced at a earthly EUR 4,000.00, N.O.S. premium, matched tubes included), and hypes and hypes a-plenty...

What happened, sound-wise... I sort-of felt as something cool to do choosing some music from Eastern Europe and the superb, music- and sound-wise Purpura Echo by Sousedi came to me from the disks shelves.

The disk and music on it is of seldom heard quality, a mix of smooth electric guitar and cello, where the gentle humming and buzzing of the tube guitar amp is functional to music, like a bow stroke or an organ air flowing give a sense of reality and expecting next note and dynamic.

The level of resolution of the combo is truly stellar... I was in awe when listening to end of any track and fading down down down to the barely audible whispering...

Every note came with a sense of life... strange enough my pal Misho insists in saying again and again the amp is brand new and giving some hours of playing it will blossom further... I can barely imagine where will be going after breaking-in!

Some technical details:

driver tubes are EF86 (originally they were EF12, but those are too old, rare and problematic).EF86 is used in triode mode driving EL12N in triode mode. EF86 coupled to EL12N by the very specially designed and made interstage transformer.

The output transformer is big enough to insure the full power frequency range starting from 10 Hz.The rectifier - mostly unknown but extremely great tube - is EYY13 tube.

Well... I only listened to two disks, following with Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit's Secret Rhythms... percussions, explosive vibes and thundering bass... the blossoming to full bloom is subtle but sure my enjoyment increased during the two hours long listening session...

Was just me or the amp?

Am I really listening to a 3,5W amp?

Is matching among gears everything's needed?

I don't know or care... what I know for sure is this very combo will give to me goosebumps and shivers for the next weeks and I'll be gladly forced to soon listen to Misho's phono-stage, as well...

What cannot say but... I'm in love for the beauty of these pieces of art... these music man-made machines gives to yours truly such an enthusiasm to further and further explore any possible combination among different ancillaries.

A Statement coming from Varna, Bulgaria... a land of strong contrasts and long history, a crossroad of people and history, the land of roses in bloom... the home of WoodenAmp, made by Men for Men with care and love for details.

I had to push me out of studietto, homebound, again... cannot stop listening, having had such a... perfect evening!

Monday, July 16, 2018

My pal Misho paid a visit to yours truly on his way in his roundtrip to another common friend, Markus Klug in Bavaria... he was accompanied by his wife Irina and his son, Misho.

Misho Myronov, Misho Jr. and... Gotorama.

He was able to squeeze in his car trunk the full WoodenAmps' monty - i.e. the world - at least among discerning, braveheart audiophiles in Australia, Philippines and... Italy - renowned birch plywood chassis tubes pieces of gear using seldom seen valves.

I unwrapped the carefully bubble-plastic cocooned line-stage, phono-stage and PSU and 3,5W amp and... simply admired the care for details, the smooth surfaces, the hex-nuts choices, even the smell of this freshly brewed handicrafts, carefully hand-made in Bulgaria.

First of all, as I plan to take my time to taste and enjoy the above mentioned electronics, I was sooo curious about the Siemens C3M tubes' based line-stage and I immediately connected to the smaller system, swapping it for the ex-residing Luxman AT-3000 passive preamp.

The first disk I enjoyed was a Stefan Micus' ECM... I immediately appreciated a sense of free-flowing easiness, a definite improved headroom and an impressive load of highly realistic detailing: the Stefan's shakuhachi has impressively dynamic, the before-the-note breathing and inspiring was absolutely true-to-life, as well.

The one of a kind, variable-strings classical guitar had a voice superbly various, rich in texture, decay and loudness, with extremely precise and dramatic dynamic changes...

The strong sensation of an inspired musician playing, improvising, breathing in front of me was nothing short of awesome.

The Partridge 300Bs mono blocks were like they found a new partner, a companion... a lover!

... and the WoodenAmp line-stage proved to be a truly fantastic lover: it owns one of the rarest capabilities - i.e. to work so well with amps it seems they were done one for each other.

I listened to the smaller, Tandberg System 11/300B/Meridian based system since yesterday early morning, for about 5 hours, now... tand he overall sound seems to blossom at every track, on and on...

This evening, I swapped the Foundation Designer/Tandberg System 11 for the larger Tandberg 114-116-8 speakers, sweating and puffing just to learn more and find confirmation of the merits of the just added Misho's line-stage.

Something really special whose building quality is up-to-par with its superb sound qualities, a single-stage with a 6x amplifying factor using a sought-after, great sounding, transparent Siemens tube used decades ago by German Post for trans-oceanic, long distance telephone calls.

The tubes were extremely expensive at DM 200 each, when a Volkswagen was DM 5,000.00... but what impresses is the transparency, resolution and dynamics... everything is so fresh and beefy.

I look forward in the next tasting on Gotorama, with RIAA phono-stage and Neumann DST and Tim de Paravicini's The Head, The Peak arm and Garrardzilla... my dream-system.

Ohhh, yes!

Bravo to Misho and his Audio Antiquary's partner Yanislav... his success and worldwide recognition as a first-class builder of bespoke, hand-made gears is my sincere wish to a friend and a man of integrity.

Personally knowing who de-facto winded the transformers used in these units only adds some drama to the whole matter... but, hey!... sounds and music first: the technical aspects are functional to the musical result, NOT a per-se exercise of hype & complication, as sometimes (too often?) happens...

Something which definitely I find quite boring and annoying these days.

Jaap is someone I truly admire since we knew about 15 years ago... he's an accomplished technician, passionate, skilled and careful to bring his beloved Thorens, EMT and Studer gears back to factory specs.

He recently - on my request - took care of an EMT 930st, a turntable which originally was located in France, resided in Italy for some years at a friend's home and now will fly to USA for its third to-date life.

A Bruel & Kjaer acceloremeter for vibes measurement...

I asked for Jaap's great support as the EMT's worked for its last years with a Siemens Micromaster 420, so without the precision caps on third motor phase, taming the vibes which could plague the mighty broadcasting turntable if poorly maintained.

... as a last step, a bespoke HAT 2 power-supply ready for 60hz/117V U.S. mains will be fitted as an outboard necessory.

I'm very satisfied for the results as per Jaap's revision photographic story-board.

In a few days the beast will be temporarily back home to be - finally - carefully crated and shipped to its final proud owner.

Friday, July 6, 2018

Maurizio changed my musical life, 35 years ago... a record - Window over the Stream - and a single piece - Out of the Game - were enough to make me sick about 12 strings acoustic guitar... forever.

Maurizio's records reviews on L'Ultimo Buscadero magazine about Robbie Basho, John Fahey, Peter Lang, Daniel Hecht, Alex De Grassi, William Ackerman and other superb guitar players opened my eyes and ears, further and further.

These records were quite difficult to be found at your local records store, so Carù Dischi in Gallarate and its mail service were extremely useful in these pre-WEB days.

Same as with analog photography, from ordering by phone to get the disc a couple of weeks were the norm... and the pleasure, after the wait, like looking at the pictures shot weeks before, was huge!

Maurizio wrote a seminal book, American Guitar, about his and my own heroes, not copy-catting infos around but visiting all of them, at their places, in the USA...

The effect of Maurizio Angeletti on me (and many other musicians friends I'm aware of) was incredible and, in 1983, I simply had to know him in person...

... same as when I spent three hours with the late Davey Graham in Camden Town, London or when I visited John Renbourn in Kingswear, Devon... it wasn't so difficult... a phone call and this alone usually worked!

... same happened with Maurizio... I arranged to take some lessons from him, at his house in Milan...

Every Saturday, for some months, I took my train bound to Milan with a cheap Ibanez jumbo to reach Maurizio and he shared licks and expression chatting and... I was like a sponge.

...

35 years after, I got an email from Maurizio, himself... out of the blue.

Wham!

I wasn't 100% sure he remembered our previous, so far away connection... yet... Maurizio was announcing around the freshly issued 2-volumes book about his findings and thoughts on the weird, unique, difficult, seldom found 12 strings acoustic guitar... not a louder 6 strings guitar or an harpsichord, but as he wisely wrote in his foreword, a one of a kind, well-defined instrument.

I immediately ordered my copy which arrived in a few hours... it really was my perfect birthday present, which I gladly paid for, of course.

The book - in Italian only, but full of diagrams, TABs, pictures - is made of a thicker tome of 450+ pages of technical, musical and aesthetic in-deep and well-informed prose with its highlights about composing and interpretations and playing dynamics and a spiral-bound TABs only book of 30 transcriptions for 12 strings acoustic guitar, all arranged or composed by Maurizio, himself.

A goldmine more than a book... it will give - to me and to everyone into this elusive, yet wonderful world of the mighty 12 strings guitar - many years of enjoyment and musical pleasure.

The one of a kind Marco Cavedon 12 strings acoustic guitar used by Maurizio in early '80s.

Please, if interested, drop Maurizio himself a note at mangeletti12corde-AT-gmai-DOT-com

A quite recent pix of the Author.

You won't regret doing so and spending every single cent of the price-tag of this opus magna.